This topic sparked my curiosity so, I got out my shovel.
So, the big northern corporations of the day owned the politicians and used that ownership
to protect and grow their wealth using tariffs, not slavery, thus sowing the seeds for the civil war.
And the relevance is...... how does this compare to today's situation???
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On the mark.
The Agrarian/Rural Democrats of the South were our only Principled Conservative Party;
their core values included the primacy of States Rights and the economic power of Free Trade.
In contrast, the Republicans were a northern Party supported by the Mercantile Class whose
core values included Strong Centralized Government and aggressive Trade Protectionism.
Every day on TBR, w/o fail, the usual suspects rant and rage about the evil D's and the
conservative R's; when in fact the R's created our current morass, post Civil War to Hoover!
They were never, ever conservative; NOT FOR A DAY!!!